The Art of Detecting Deception

In this episode of The Hiring Confessional, Expert Recruiter Michael Hayes sits down with Alan Saquella — Professor, Director of Investigations, Consultant, and deception detection expert with more than 30 years of experience in investigations, workplace security, fraud prevention, and interviewing techniques.

Together, they discuss:
• How investigators detect deception
• Body language and behavioral cues
• Workplace fraud and embezzlement
• AI scams, deepfakes, and cybersecurity threats
• Hiring mistakes companies still make
• Why LinkedIn and networking matter for job seekers
• The future of AI in hiring and investigations

Alan also shares real-world insights from law enforcement, corporate investigations, and teaching future security professionals.

Key takeaway from the episode:
“Truthful people respond differently than non-truthful people.”

Whether you’re a job seeker, hiring manager, business owner, or simply interested in human behavior and deception detection, this episode delivers practical advice you can apply immediately.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hello, this is Michael Hayes with Momentum Hiring Solutions. Today is another episode of the Hiring Confessional. But before we start and listen to our guest, I was driving here again. Remember how I have all these issues when I drive around this town? One of the things I've noticed about Phoenix is they love to block the streets. Every the guy that has the business for pylons and barricades must be a billionaire. The other thing that's nice is let's block the road with nobody working. I love that. So five different spots on the way here over 11 miles, and there's not a person on the street. So if you're the dude that has the uh corner on these barricades, um you probably could pay off the national debt. I did get asked this week to do some tips for job seekers because I know there's a lot of you out there that are looking for work or have issues with finding jobs and have trouble with companies, et cetera, on dealing with getting interviews and stuff. And you can sit here and criticize stuff, like especially the being on time. But I hate to tell you, if you're gonna keep being late every week or late to stuff or missing interviews, you're probably not gonna get a decent job. So tell me about how we're old and we don't know anything. But showing up on time respects other people's time, and when you're late, you disrespect them. So let's get that clear. Here's some tips for old people like me. If you have Sun City, Arizona on your resume, please get a P.O. box. I don't know if you know this, but there's ageism out there. And that actually works against you because people can tell that's an over 55 place to live. So they can pretty much figure out how old you are. You might as well just put the mortuary address down because it's the same thing. So get yourself a P.O. box. Being on time is still a thing. Why does the doctor send you 40 texts on your appointment starting with the day that you book it? Because people don't show up and they have issues with rebooking people, and it wastes everybody's time. So being on time is still an important thing. Wearing your hat backwards that is a key that you're here to rob the place. So if you're going to interviews or you're going to be on things that are around people that are networking, put your hat forward. Just give it a try. Change it up for a time. Your backwards hat isn't working for you. Another thing that's a little more serious was protect your background and motor vehicle record. Backgrounds are run on a lot of different places, and it's very dangerous to for you to get in a job if you have background issues, theft, all that sort of thing. Motor vehicle record, too. If you get a job where they require you to drive, if you've got three DUIs, first of all, you're probably going to be in jail, which is going to show in the background. And number two, you're not going to be able to drive a company vehicle. So protect that with everything you can. You just don't know what kind of background check or what this companies or companies are going to actually do when they get the information. So don't give them something to cut you loose. Most folks that I know would hire a murderer before they hire somebody that steals stuff. So stealing is probably one of the worst. So do yourself a favor and make sure you behave yourself out there. Okay, those are the tips. Give us some comments about those and let us know if those can help you out or if they're stupid and you want me to come up with something better. So today we have Alan Sequela. He spent 30 years figuring out why people are lying. He's the professor at Embry Riddle, director of investigations at Varenseic, who's a guest we had on before, and one of the few people who interviews people for a completely different reason than I do. He's not trying to hire them, he's trying to catch them. I've known Alan since we lived on the same dorm floor at NAU in 1980, which, by the way, that was the wild west of being in school. Which means he's had 45 years of practice catching me lying, which is probably about 50% of the time. Alan, welcome today. I'm glad you could make it to come into the hiring professional.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Michael, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Glad to be here with you today. Give us a little bit of your background. Um, because after you came out of NAU, how did you get into this uh field and what have you accomplished going f since then?

SPEAKER_00 5:28

You know, NAU at the time when I attended there had a program called Police Science. So that was my major. So I was interested in that field to begin with, and it really dates back to high school. I almost hate to share this. When I was in high school, I I worked undercover with the NARC officers to set up uh buys and they would bust the drug dealers. So I was actually quite interested in law enforcement early on and went through the polygraph, I'm sorry, went through the law enforcement program, graduated, then went to polygraph school. I was corrupted by the uh DPS crime lab, which was in the uh university. You might remember this in the bottom floor, they had the crime lab, there was an examiner there, polygraph, and I would talk to them, got interested in that field. So when I graduated, I when I went on and got my master's, then I did the uh polygraph training, then I did I was hired, I won't mention the agency, but I was doing background criminal investigations, uh interrogations as well as polygraph, uh screening, and you had mentioned the types of interview I do was not to uh hire, but also to catch people. So I did a lot of that on the front end for law enforcement and intelligence agencies, but just had an interest in it early on.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Did um so I mean that's a big industry, so how what what did you decide to focus on the most as far as uh was it working with companies or or what have you?

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Well, uh when we were in college, there was a heights requirement for police officers, and you'll notice I'm pretty short, yeah. I'm only five foot five, and so I figured, you know, I'm gonna get challenged on the street, so I better find another avenue. So lie detection seemed very interesting to me. Uh at that time, everybody was using it. Law enforcement, intelligence agencies, even corporations were using it to screen candidates, uh dealing with everything from, you know, trying to identify everything from uh integrity issues like you had mentioned, theft, but also everything else you can imagine under the sun. Uh you didn't want to bring people on to have history of issues. What's really interesting I found in my career that 87% of the people that were hired did not have a criminal history, which is awesome. What we have though are behavior problems. So we want to catch those, get those uh identified during the interview or the pretest interview as part of the polygraph so we can screen those bad behaviors out. But every industry was using it. Uh I I dabbled in the public sector as well as the private sector, which then ultimately led me to become a director of security uh at uh my last company before I retired and now started to teach at Ember Riddle five years ago.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

So what when do they call you in to do your magic? Is it mostly internal stuff? Um now how do the can people refuse to do the polygraph, or how does that work if they're working at a uh a certain company or do they agree upon agree about that before they can even come in?

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Uh there's a polygraph protection act of 1989 which severely restricted the use in the private sector. So uh prior to that, any company could ask any employee or applicant to take it, and if they refused to take it, they would not be hired. The Polygraph Protection Act actually put an end to that. So most organizations do not use pre-employment polygraph in the private or corporate sector, with the exception of pharmaceutical companies, security companies, companies that are government contractors that require security clearance. So that's a small percentage of the population now. And so, yes, you can refuse uh today, and of course the companies can't ask you unless, again, it's required by the government contract. Now, in the law enforcement sector and the intelligence sector, you don't have a choice. You have to take one to get past the screening process for hiring. The other part, of course, is the insider issue that you mentioned. You companies are not going to use uh the polygraph for insider issues. So when I left Polygraph uh in the early 90s, I went to work as a corporate investigator where I investigated insider issues. We could not use polygraph. And of course, then I had to hone my skills related to interview, and hate to use the word interrogation, but interview and interrogation, we don't waterboard, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Oh, no waterboarding? Well, geez, that would have been a lot quicker and a lot cheaper. Have you one of the th one of the people that I always tell people when they ask me about interviews, like how do you get good at them, or you know, what did you learn? And I learned most of mine on the job and doing them, you know, yeah, do them and do them and do them. But there's one person that I think if you don't know how to interview, if you emulate, is Judge Judy. I don't know if you've watched those shows, if you stay home, I watch how she asks the questions and how she gets a written statement, and then she goes through the same information, it's not rocket science, and she tries to catch people lying. And I think she uses a lot of intuition that way. Now, I'm not saying it's always correct, but I think at most of the end of those, she gets out what she's looking for. How would you comment on that?

SPEAKER_00 10:34

No, she uh she's trained to do that, and it is through practice. I just wrote an article for a security magazine about uh you can get a certificate and interview and interrogation, but if you don't practice it, you're not gonna get good at it. You have to learn how to read body language, verbal and nonverbal, microexpressions. That's part of interrogation. And this is very similar to what she's doing, she's looking at uh the behaviors more so in the written statement, then she can go back later and catch them in a lie. We do that during the actual interrogation. We're asking questions, we're looking at their body language, verbal, nonverbal, facial expressions, uh, and then of course, based on those, it'll lead us down a path. Uh people who uh are deceptive or wanting to be deceptive respond differently than those who are truthful. You know, for example, if I said to you, Did you take that missing bank deposit? If you didn't take it, you're immediately gonna say no. A suspect may pause, hesitate, they may even ask you, Do you think I took that missing bank deposit? So they avoid answering the question. That gives the interrogator, okay, uh, green light, I'm going down this path now because he's he's a suspect. So you have to be trained, you gotta practice it. It's like any athlete. You gotta get out and practice it.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Where um what are some of the cues like body language and things that that you could tell somebody was or even a tip for somebody that's even what about questioning your kids? You know, that's the kind of thing that you know most parents would need. But what are the body language that trigger uh suspicion?

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Well, I can take you actually back further. Uh the polygraph actually records body language uh of different things that we're monitoring. It's controlled by what we call the autonomic nervous system. There's two parts there's the parasympathetic and the sympathetic. So sitting here with you talking, uh the parasitic uh parasympathetic is is in charge. When we lie about something we're concerned about, we're trying to deceive, the sympathetic takes over, and there's a little bit of a push of adrenaline, blood pressure change, respiration changes, your pupils dilate, and it causes other physiological things that you can notice. If a person's been lying for a while, you'll notice their mouth will get dry, they'll start having white foam appear in the corners of the mouth because they can't produce saliva. When you're in a fight or flight response, which is the sympathetic nervous system taking over, your body's preparing you to fight or f or flee, and when we lie, the same thing happens. And so it naturally a lot of the movements crossing the legs and arms to protect the trunk and body is something they may push back to to create some separation from the person. Uh they may avoid eye contact, they may pause or hesitate when you ask the question, like I mentioned with the bank deposit. Uh they'll come up with other responses that are not uh indicative of truthfulness. Truthful people respond differently than non-truthful people. Look for the pauses and the hesitations and looking away and the closed body posture and uh the separation. Uh that tells you that they don't want to share anything with you. And those are good keys. Actually, the cla one of the classes I teach is interview and interrogation at Ember Riddle, and it's a whole semester to get 45 hours, and we actually have them uh do some mock interviews on it. We set up a crime. Uh someone takes a hundred dollar bill off the table. There's three suspects. They interview each of them, monitoring the behaviors. By week six, they can all pick out the person who did it without them admitting it.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

And that's again, you were like saying it's just like anything else golf, tennis, whatever. You you're not gonna be good if you don't practice it. What um so where do these kids go that end up getting to this? Because a lot of people might not know that this is, you know, a big field, you know, because everybody always thinks they know about all these jobs and careers, but that's an interesting career that's probably gonna, don't you agree it's probably gonna continue to go without, you know, and we can get into AI later, but this is something that can be a good career path for for young people, correct?

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Oh, absolutely. You know, most people are watching the different crime shows on television, so they want to go that that path. At MB Riddle, our program's called Global Security and Intelligence. So a lot of our students graduate and go into the three-letter agencies. Uh we have several going through the screening process for all of them right now as they graduated and moved on. Some will go local law enforcement uh as crime analysts because they're really wanting to help uh prevent, mitigate criminal activity. They're not really wanting to be beat cops necessarily, and you don't really go get a bachelor's degree to do that necessarily. But some will will do that. But again, the the three-letter agencies as well as corporations. The issue we're seeing is uh white-collar crime is growing exponentially, okay? So fraud examiners, people we also offer a degree in uh forensic accounting and fraud examining, because you have to follow the money. Every uh terrorist organization, criminal syndicate needs money, and they're criminal other committing white-collar offenses, laundering money to be able to operate. We need people to be able to follow that. Think about cryptocurrency and overhead there as well. As we're looking uh for these types of uh criminals, we gotta find the money and we're gonna find them. So the future is growing crazily. Uh we uh just like uh we have baby boomers retiring in every particular uh field, including aeronautics and we're short on pilots, so is the uh the intelligence and law enforcement fields. Especially at the street level. How many people want to become beat cops today?

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Well, especially when, you know, if you make a wrong move, depending on what city you're in, you could end up being in jail. I mean it's not worth the amount of money you get paid for that hassle. And it's very hard when you put somebody in that position, um, whether they're shooting or whatever it is, you know, it's a second, split second. And the thing I worry about is people are gonna start, you know, pulling their punches because you're gonna get we're getting more cops killed because they're too worried about what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Oh, absolutely. So what you're finding, the more progressive law enforcement agencies are are embracing technology, and I'm sure we'll get into AI. Uh, this city right here in Scottsdale, by the way, has the best drone program in the country. Law enforcement's coming here from all over the world to see how we're dispatching our drones. In the city of Scottsdale, they can di I went to their their crime center just a month and a half ago. They can have a drone on site at the crime scene within one minute of it being reported. So it's hovering over the crime scene while law enforcement is en route, so it's getting updated information. Uh so you're gonna see that uh cities like Scottsale and others around the country that are embracing technology, drone technology as well as AI, robots, and other things. You're gonna have to supplement the human uh force with technology. Because Phoenix has, I don't know, close to a thousand officers down. No, they're not gonna they're not gonna fill them. They have to they're gonna have to embrace technology. Let's figure out how we're gonna we're gonna do our jobs and keep the citizens of Phoenix safe, but they're gonna have to employ other things, robots, drones, technology.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

So this is this is probably the what's uh speeding the drone technology was probably when the uh especially the war in Ukraine started, and they started figuring out, oh man, we can use all these drones. And that's why you probably see it's gonna all this uh stuff for uh waging of war is gonna change to more robotics than it is gonna be people. Because you can be you could be the best uh platoon or group of seals and one guy with a drone could take you out. And that's sure I don't think people really thought that through when when that when this stuff started.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Yeah, because some of these drones that which by the way, some of them are made right here in Gilbert, Arizona, they strap bombs on those. Those drones are like kamikaze, but there's no pilot in there. So you fly it right into your uh uh whatever your destination is that you're shooting for. And so, yeah, you're gonna have a lot of those cool and smart systems on uh on the military side, uh, but also on a law enforcement side. We we're gonna have to use this.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

What um if you're a if you're a company out there, what kind of issues uh would they call you or ask for your advice to come in and look at? What's some of the main, what's the top couple things that happen inside companies that they're like, hey, we need to find out what's going on here?

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Yeah, so when I'm not teaching, I do a little consulting on the side and I also train professionals around the country. Uh I get called in for white-collar stuff, corporate crimes. So kind of my specialty, that's where I spent a lot of my time when I left the public sector. I was in the private sector for 30 years. So I was involved with investigating everything under the sun that could hurt the company. Uh from an insider and external standpoint. So it could be embezzlement, uh, which is stealing, right? It could be uh espionage, stealing company information, selling it to a competitor or elsewhere. Uh workplace violence, sexual harassment, uh sabotage, everything that goes on where uh today I get called out with companies that don't have insider comp uh investigation teams that can do it. So small, medium-sized companies. I did a lot of work for small medical practices because they don't realize you have to separate duties. Can't have the same person getting the mail, you have access to the credit cards, accounts payable, accounts receivable, because you're gonna have fraud. Uh and of course, uh when when a dentist calls me, they're already into them for two or three hundred thousand dollars in embezzlement. So small companies have risks because they don't separate the duties. So I get called off for mostly for embezzlement situations because they don't have the controls in place to prevent that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

And is that because they overtrust the people that are working for them? And then or and then by the way, the people that you do find in there, are they like a serial person that does that? I mean, I find it hard to believe that somebody would start working somewhere and then two years later, you know, work an embezzlement scheme. Is that is that is that correct, or is it is it somebody that just looks for a great opportunity to get into and then waits for that time to jump?

SPEAKER_00 21:04

That's a great question, Mike. Actually, I teach a c another class at Emberles called white-collar crime, and we look at what we call the fraud triangle. And the fraud triangle is uh motivation, rationalization, and opportunity. Opportunity at the top of the pyramid is what causes a lot of people to do it. So to your point, if it's if there's weak controls, they're gonna they may do it. Now, there's a there's a thing called the 1080-10 rule. 10% of the population will never steal. You can leave a bank deposit out and they won't take it. 10% will do it all the time. Uh so there's not much you can do for that guy. It's the 80% that general population, those are the ones we have to address. We do that through good controls uh and have tight controls and auditing, but also uh make sure we do a good job hiring. Have the controls in place, because you can do a great job hiring, but if we don't have any controls, we create that opportunity by giving them all the response. Responsibility and something happens in their life, financial problem, gambling, whatever, it could cause them to embezzle. So not everybody comes in with the intent to embezzle. I think 10% do. 80% are just general people that, if given the opportunity, will take advantage of it. And the other 10% I don't think you ever have to worry about.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

What do you think about, and I was just, I just this just popped into my head, and you know, like stuff pops into my head all the time. Half the time I don't say anything because you don't want to hear it. But, you know, I I a couple weeks ago I learned that term micro looting from some of these East Coast, you know, smart alex that think that's an okay way to do stuff. Like you're you're telling people, hey, it's okay to go steal lemons at Costco or wherever the hell you're at. And I'm like, okay, so you you start to uh rationalize theft, and I can just see how that snowballs. Um what did you notice that thing when it came out? And I'm like, wow, that's a bad thing to have go on.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

I smiled a little bit and laughed because a lot of it starts off small and it creates a behavior. And so you can't even when I used to do polygraphs for pre-employment screening for you know public sector, we asked, what's the most valuable thing you've you've stolen? Shoplifted and also from a place of employment. You know, it starts off small. If nobody says anything about it, it continues to grow. And the same thing with the lemons. And so you don't want to uh condone that type of behavior. And so I had another example where I had an employee in my last company embezzled a couple hundred thousand for us. During the interrogation, she mentioned that she prayed that she would get caught because she was a kleptomaniac and she could not stop stealing. And she had mentioned it it continued, started at a young age as shoplifting and junior high, continued on to the point now she embezzled a couple hundred thousand. Now this happened during COVID, so the courts were closed. We did, in fact, file and prosecute her, but the courts were closed. While she was waiting for her first hearing, she got arrested for shoplifting. And so again, it continued. So I think it could create an illness or a behavior that's hard to stop. It's like gambling, right? You go to the casino, they want you in there, and you win, you go back, you keep doing it, next thing you know, uh, you're embezzling money to pay for your habit, whether it's drugs, alcohol, gambling, or just uh kleptomania.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Well, the thing the thing that I found interesting is that if if you've got people that can rationalize stealing, then they're also they have no idea the economics of how a store works. You know, you're these guys are making one or two percent turn at the most on their on their inventory, and you're stealing stuff that other people have to pay for. But that never comes up. It's the the company is making all this money. And I'm like, you have no idea what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

No, absolutely right. I mean, if you think about the margins, right? And retail and uh grocery stores, their margins are very slim. So one or two percent, like you mentioned, on the grocery stores. And the average company in the United States loses about five percent of their annual revenue to fraud. Uh if their margin is three percent, they're in a hole too. So uh yeah, they don't realize that the company is not making that as profit. That's after all expenses are paid, including payroll and rent, which are some of your largest expenses. And so uh they don't understand that. And the thing is, and I teach this in my white-collar crime class, why is white-collar crime such a problem, by the way? It's according to the FBI, it's a $300 billion a year loss to American companies. $300 billion. That's based on what's reported. Now, you and I know not everything's getting reported, and it's probably five times that amount. Uh it's because Americans or people don't see companies as victims. The one the victims are the ones that are in the news every day, it's the person that's killed. We like that kind of stuff. That's the stuff that gets media attention, not the not the white-collar stuff. Nobody cares about it.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

It's um this part of the investigative process is you know, these companies just get, you know, you work at a company and you get bombed with these BS emails that people put together. They use the name or the stationary or logos, and then you know, Susie clicks on the link and sends 20 grand to some goof doofus over in uh Uganda or something. Is that part of a a bigger problem because of the amount of this crap that gets sent out? Like I know um I have a friend that works at American Express and they talk about this all the time. So is that another big problem that's going on right now?

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Yeah, it is, and you'll find a lot of that in a financial institution such as American Express or banking. Uh you know, you got to have certainly great controls in education and culture in the company. You'll notice when you log into your computer, you know, it is the first message that comes up, you're gonna abide by the IT policies. Uh and of course, there's constant reminders. If you think about just how what happened last week with Canvas, which is the platform that most universities use, that got hacked. Uh, and of course, uh that was a big deal. It happened right around graduation. All the state universities uh were having a hard time getting their grades in and so forth. Uh so someone had someone had clicked on a link, and that's exactly what happened there, that caused uh the outsider to get in and cause havoc. It's a big issue. What is also bigger that we don't talk about is on the personal side, identity theft, uh these romance scams that you see on uh you know Facebook and wherever else is a big problem. People are falling from them, and you see the elderly population or lonely uh that fall for these scams. And it's it's an unfortunate thing. I mean, I'm so careful.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

I delete stuff I actually need. Like people go, hey, I sent you an email and you're not reading it. I go, I thought it was a scam. I I get really um I just if I don't even if it doesn't look even halfway legit and I can't call to verify, I just delete the screen.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

I'm smiling because I do the same thing. I think our generation does that. We're at a point now, if we don't trust it, we delete it or block it. And what it's interesting, I was talking to some companies, they say that's a problem now, because marketers are having a hard time getting through to us sending legitimate marketing because we don't trust anything. And it, you know, it's unfortunate. The pendulum has swung all the way the opposite way to prevention and protection. I'm not sure where the balance is gonna be, but you know, I'd rather not be marketed to and solicited anyway, because you know, suggestive marketing pops up when you're talking about it if you got your mic on and your on your phone.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

What's the um so based on your knowledge, what's the AI gonna provide for this? Is it gonna be more of a tool for embezzlers, or is it gonna be more of a tool for the people trying to catch the embezzlers? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

That's a great question. I will tell you that the the um the embezzlers and the frosters are about a step ahead of us. And of course, every time they do it, we catch up and we do and we uh we we plug the gap. You have to well, one one of the things I recommend is we have to embrace it and find a way to use it so that we can be more uh protective. Use we call it now protective intelligence, which is more preventative versus mitigating the issue after it occurs. We have to go out there and search for risk indicators and then plug them before they become a risk. Because once it happens, now you've got to mitigate the damage. So I'm actually teaching a new class to fall called uh protective intelligence. And basically it's about that. We're gonna be using tools to be looking out in the dark web and elsewhere for those potential risks before they manifest into an actual risk. We have to do that. We're gonna be using AI to do that, looking for certain types of behaviors and so forth that the scammers use. Therefore, you can try to plug it before you actually are targeted. Um AI is gonna be helpful in the investigation and intelligence world, it's already being used. I'm gonna give you another example. Up in our university, we have uh in another college, we have four colleges up there, but in the forensics arts and sciences college, we have a capstone uh uh program for students working in the law enforcement sector where they get to work on cold cases, uh real actual cold cases, and where they get to look at uh you know case files of everything that they give them the whole thing. Yeah, the prosecutors are the law enforcement give it to them. And they're starting to use a lot more advanced technology. Uh so from a scientific standpoint. Now on our side in global security and intelligence, we're doing similar things where we'll actually take written statements, similar to what you said about Judge Judy. We'll take some written statements and then we'll run them through AI using what we call forensic linguistic techniques. We'll say using forensic linguistic techniques, and we'll give uh the AI what those are. Then I'll say analyze, the prompt will be analyze the statement and tell me if it's a witness, a victim, or a suspect that wrote this statement. Wow. Like that. Usually take a day and a half for uh forensic uh forensic linguistics to analyze something like that. Because people that speak and write that are deceptive speak and write differently. So uh th I we talked about behaviors, but it's also how we speak. Uh suspects avoid contractions, uh, they avoid pronouns. Of course, they pause, they hesitate, just change their answers. So we're looking for all those indicators and cues as we're analyzing the statements. And it'll come back. We actually I have a good friend of mine who was one of the lead detectives on the old zodiac case up in California. We got those case files. And of course, we're analyzing some of those statements. Now that thing is 40 years old, maybe longer. I'm sure that suspect's dead and gone. But it's cool to be able to analyze using these techniques on those statements. And it's confirming a lot of what the law enforcement already did. But can you imagine uh if we're able to help solve some cases? There was actually a case up in Flagstaff shortly after we were there in 1987 where a gal by the name of Ina Langstaff, NAU student, was stabbed brutally, killed uh in in November of '87, went unsolved until about last month. Uh our university and others uh got involved and actually pushed that case along and encouraged them to uh use some more modern uh DNA technology. I made an arrest last month. So uh this is a 30-something-year-old, almost 40-year-old homicide. So you're gonna start to see some of this stuff help on old cold cases, uh, which I think uh is gonna be really good for the families and of course I think society as a whole.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

For like your your general employee out there, what what should they do to protect themselves at the company and the company? I mean, you don't want to be the dude that pushed on the link that everybody you know is gonna be talking about at the cocktail party later in the afternoon. So what what should they be aware of that you see are the new bait and switch things that are people using right now to get people to bite on this stuff?

SPEAKER_00 33:24

You know, with most of the scammers, it's always uh timing. And so they're trying to get you to hurry and make a decision. Uh stop and think and listen. Uh don't click on the link, let it sit in your box. Uh what you're gonna find with the younger generation are in a hurry. They're so savvy with technology, they may not fully uh think about what they do before they act. You and I, on the other hand, we may not even respond or delete it. Uh they just need to slow down, they need to follow the process and policies that we've we've established for them. The scams are still the same, they're just coming in different ways, uh whether it are emails, whether they're links, whether they're well, deep fakes are the biggest concern today, which are uh you know mimicking someone's uh audio recording. Uh right now there's a scam going on where if they call you, uh someone will call you, and you you've probably had these calls where you say hello, who's there, and it's dead for a minute before it finally connects to somebody. They're recording your voice. They're gonna use that later to create a deep fake. So don't answer, don't if if you hear that, don't say hello. Just sit there and wait and see what happens. They'll usually disconnect. We just have to be aware of these things because they are coming up with new and innovative ways to uh duplicate us, uh, and of course uh use that later for other types of scams like calling grandma. You've heard of that scam. Yeah, that's pretty frightening when a grandchild allegedly is calling grandma asking for money because they were arrested or down in Mexico or they're hurt and they need money right away. And so we just have to educate, be aware, and and and in your case and my case, don't trust anything. The IRS sends letters they don't call. Law enforcement does not call, they come to the door. Let's turn off technology for a while. Let's go out in the street and play baseball. Let's avoid some of this stuff that we're so addicted to because that's the the vehicle they're using to get to us.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Well, I mean, I know. I mean, like today, I was at the gym and I listen to like books or whatever the heck I listen to. But I watch people sitting on machines and clogging the machine while they're looking at their phone. And it's not just one, it's like 20 machines. You look around, it looks like drones all sitting there like bees that just sit still the whole day. And I'm like, you you can't take you can't shut that off for like a half hour. Um do you think that's a big problem too? Because I think I don't see as I don't hear as much of it about uh the scams coming through the phones as I do the the computer systems at work. But is it it is it about the same them using the phones because they're so much easier to get to thanks to yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

It's not the it's not the phone calls as much anymore because everyone's blocking them and they're not answering their phones. Let's face it, if you don't if you don't recognize a number, you don't answer it. And if it's legit, they'll leave a voice message. So, no, it is the computers. You're getting monitored, uh it's like the direct marketing based on your likes or based on your conversations, and all of a sudden you and I are talking about a particular type of shoe, within an hour we're getting marketed by that shoe company. So, yes, computers are uh, and of course, uh the technology behind them, uh, which is causing us to get solicited and bombarded. That's why I say you gotta lock down your phones, turn off your mics, uh, try to detect once in a while. Again, remember our generation, we were out playing in a field. We didn't have phones. And so I think it was a lot easier and a lot safer for sure.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

The other thing is I think, because again, when I have my class at GCU for the networking and then entrepreneurship and innovation, it's the amount of these younger kids, usually 18 to 22, a majority of them can't have a conversation with somebody. They first of all, they're they they just want to go to a class where you know it's just a drone on and on for an hour of showing you stuff on the screen or whatever. But when you start engaging and trying to get people to to speak or do a little short presentation, it's almost like they're gonna kill themselves. They they it's the hardest thing they've ever done. And I blame a lot of that. It's we're still in that COVID lag where we did nothing for a couple years, and now you're trying to get people to get back into actually having a conversation with somebody that can eventually maybe get you a job. I mean, if you're you'd be shocked at how I tell people what go meet people, you know, hang out with your professors, or you know, go to lunch with one of them, or say, hey, you know, can I meet you after class and pick your brain? You get all these great tools, and I'll ask how many of you people have talked to their professor after class? Nobody raises their hand, and I'm like, what I want to get somebody that would, if if I get a job offer or I don't have a job offer, I could get a recommendation from. Hey, this guy knows me, whatever, he's gonna do that for me. Just getting people to sign up and put, I I get, I get LinkedIn's not for, you know, it's not for everybody, but it's a great place that's just not, you know, Snapchat or Facebook or TikTok. It's more of a business oriented. Now we could debate that too. But they have a hard time even signing up for LinkedIn. And I I just I have a hardest time understanding, and I think we're not starting this training early enough, and then you're trying to squeeze it into a semester, and it just doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

No, I agree 100%. We've actually uh we have a UNIV 101 class, University 101. They all have to take it to kind of learn and how to be successful in the university. Now it's required. They have to have a LinkedIn profile. Uh I'm also known as the LinkedIn guru, and I'm smiling because uh the first thing that comes out of my mouth when a student shows up in my office, do you have a LinkedIn profile? When they drop their head and say, No, okay, come back to me once you started it, then I'll help you with it. Uh we're actually creating a video on LinkedIn. You know, when I'm when we hear that 85% of recruiters are using it, and I tell them LinkedIn is professional networking, it's not social media. It's yeah, we can debate that because we're starting to see a lot more ads and so forth, but it's not Facebook or Instagram or TikTok. And you I saw a guy post something, you'll love this. He's in our generation. He's complaining about why he cannot find a job. Of course, he's not embracing AI and the sifter uh uh uh the uh applicant tracking systems and how to get past AI. But in addition to that, when I looked at his photo, he's in a bar with a beer in his hand. That's his professional photo on LinkedIn, okay? Uh I about died. Uh I actually wrote an article right after that and talked about the do's and don'ts on LinkedIn. I hope he read it. But this is not social media, it's professional media, and that picture needs to be a professional headshot. Or I had a guy with sunglasses and a baseball cap turned sideways. Yeah, there you go. Uh right.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Um next That's great if you're hiring a DJ.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Exactly right. Yeah. And so uh, you know, these kids don't get it, and even some adults. But you have to you gotta move on. You got you gotta realize this is the future. Embrace it, use it, and get out there and and um improve your social skills, like you mentioned about COVID. Yeah, we're seeing it as well. Uh but I think and I hope we're at the end of COVID as we're getting into those who were in COVID in junior high now had socialization in person in high school, they're a little better. I'm hoping this fall we'll we'll see an improvement.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

And I think you're I mean, uh I've said this before about higher education in this country. It is on a death watch with this AI, because I don't think people are gonna want to pay $50,000 or $100,000 a year to read Chat GPT crap. I'm not. Um, and I think unless you have some type of class where you're bringing in stuff that you need to work on, or a group project, or speeches about business or topics that even topic a topic like when you do a Toastmasters introductory speech, you know, tell me about yourself. Those type of things get somebody ready to be in the business world. But I don't think we're gonna pay a bunch of money to have somebody use Chat GPT for four years. And I think that you just saw the other day, I don't know if it was true or not, some kid from UCLA was flashing his uh his thesis or something that he did through Chat GPT on the thing, and supposedly it's gotten thousands of likes. And I couldn't find out if it was true or not, but apparently they're looking into him about pulling his degree because it violates the the the student code of conduct. And I'm like, w that's the type of dumb stuff that people do that just drives me crazy. I mean, why would you do that?

SPEAKER_00 42:37

No, you're absolutely right. So uh some of my peers up at Amber Riddle are starting to go back to the old blue book, uh, which uh which is gonna slow some of that down, uh using more quizzes in class versus uh assignments where they can use AI. Uh a lot more in uh group presentations or group activities in the classroom, so they can't use it. Uh some we are encouraging them to use it for other purposes, but not to st not for uh uh generating a report or a a paper because again they're gonna steal this stuff, and of course it's not gonna be theirs, it's not gonna be authentic, and they're not gonna get anything out of it. So uh yeah, universities are still struggling how they're gonna deal with it. We are using alternative methods to try to uh discourage some of it. At the same time, we have to have them use it for other purposes.

SPEAKER_01 43:33

Yeah, I think the other thing you were talking about LinkedIn is what I call resume builders. Any type of job, like some people think um, you know, if I work at you know McDonald's, I would never put that up. And I'm like, no, that's a that's a business, that's a job. You did stuff there, whatever it is. And it shows that you've got some gumption or you want to earn some additional money or get additional experience. Go get any. Internships paid or unpaid. I mean, go go work or volunteer at nonprofits or whatever it is, so you can get marks on your res on your what I call your living resume, which is LinkedIn. And the other thing is when you when it comes down to hiring two people and they're even, your the guy or the gal that does their extracurricular stuff is going to get the nod.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

No, you're absolutely right. I say that too. And a lot of our students will have those jobs and they go, what should I do? I say, well, well, let me ask you a few questions. Okay, when you worked at that restaurant, uh, what was your job? I was uh, let's say, uh uh a greeter or I was a waitress, all right? Were you handled were you responsible for cash handling? Safety, slips, trips, and falls. Let's get all that in there because we're interested in safety, security, cash handling. Those are the kinds of things we want to have in the description as well because of the field you're going into. You have integrity, that you're concerned about safety and security and cash handling. Those are all things that you forgot to add. So we add those in addition to the fact that they had a job, that they're responsible. So, yes, you want to have that in there to your point. If you have no experience, you're gonna go with the guy that has experience. And that's also volunteerism, uh, different activities that they're involved in, uh, which are also gonna bolster their living resume.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Well, I tell people too, like if you come out here to some of the ritzy ritzy restaurants and stuff out here, and you can get a job in there and start off maybe as a bus or bus boy or something like that, and you get to be aware the type of people that you will meet, that's the people that might hire you. Hey, this kid is so look how great he serves, or look how he he presents himself very professionally. People hire that way, and I think that's become a lost art. Like, oh, I'm too important to work at a restaurant, you know, I'm studying to be a lawyer or whatever. And I'm like, dude, nobody cares. Um, I think people think a lot of that stuff is beneath them. Like, I've had some people go, Well, you know, I I worked at Walmart for two years. I go, okay, you worked at Walmart. I mean, the the largest retailer, all the type of things that you probably did there. You had a manager, all these other things that you had to do. You had to be there on time, stuff like that. Why are you downplaying that experience?

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Right. And the other thing they need to realize when they are working in those capacities, they're always on stage. So be performing. You be at the top of your game, to your point. Working here in this town, uh, you don't know what you're gonna come into contact with. You know, when I was uh in different jobs around the country, I taught adjunct at different universities. And I was looking for talent. And I would, based on those prof the performances, I would recruit some of those students. Ultimately, that's how I wound up landing at Ember Riddle. I actually did a guest lecture up there, found a student, hired them, took them to my organization. So you you you're always looking, you're always recruiting, or sales guys, you're always closing. You're always looking for talent. And I'll tell you, business owners, lead good leaders are always looking for talent. They should have a resume bank. I used to keep one in my my desk, uh, top talent. I may not have a position today, but these are the ones I'm gonna call the the first moment I get one.

SPEAKER_01 47:21

Well, a lot of businesses don't think that way. That's more reactionary. And I always tell people is always be like you said, always be recruiting, especially in the industrial sector, because you could have two guys walk in tomorrow and say, hey, we're out of here. Now you've got to start grinding. And um, you know, sometimes if you're a small business, that's you know 25% of your workforce.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

No, you have to be. You're always looking for talent. Uh it's gonna help protect your business. Uh what's your succession plan, right? Who's gonna take that position if the guy decides to leave? You have to have uh backup or bench.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

I mean, this has been a great conversation now that time just blows by. But as a final thing, give us a couple, you know, what do you think are the two or three most important things in your business now that are going to propel it forward um over the next couple years? What do you think is gonna be give us a little pick uh picture of the future?

SPEAKER_00 48:22

Well, I could say AI and technology is gonna have a bigger role in what we do, but you know what? The machines are not gonna make the decisions. The humans still have to make the decisions because you have to hold somebody accountable. It's kind of like the autonomous vehicles out there. If they get in an accident, they're not suing the autonomous vehicle, they're suing the owner or the manager. Someone has to make a decision. We still need people. Uh don't worry about AI. Get out there and put your first uh your your best foot forward. We need to continually improve our uh capabilities as far as applicants, because I know that uh we this is the hiring confessional, right? So we do want to be thinking about polishing our resumes, your LinkedIn profile, build your network. I had someone tell me once, don't even start looking for a job until you have 500 connections on LinkedIn as a minimum. And you know you have thousands. Uh because that network is so important. Listen to uh your peers and don't worry about reinventing the wheel. Look at the good profiles that are out there. Uh use those as a template so that you can help uh bolster your own, uh, improve it, and start networking. Don't be afraid to get out there and communicate, meet people, uh, ask them to be part of your network. So, as far as the hiring and the uh looking for work, I think that's very, very important. As far as my career and the path that I'm in, we're certainly going to need more professionals to protect uh our society, our country, and why we're here today. And so we're gonna continue to embrace technology to make sure that we have uh the best possible uh systems out there to uh protect our national security, our societies, and our companies here in the United States.

SPEAKER_01 50:01

And then as a final word for me, I I think people, I'm already starting to hear it. Uh people are using AI as an excuse for not getting a job. And I think you can't use that as an excuse. And you've you have to start thinking of how where am I gonna fit in with the way this is going? And don't overreact. Like we in America, we're always, you know, if we if one candy bar is good, five's better. So we always overreact, and then after a couple years, people are like, oh, hey, you know, this isn't the greatest thing that ever happened because there's other issues that have come up that we need to be so pay attention to what's going on and then take advantage of it. Well, absolutely, Mike, spot on. Yeah. Well, great. I want to thank Alan for being here. Um, this is the hiring confessional. And do yourself a favor today. If you have a friend or something you haven't talked to in a while, why don't you reach out to him and give them a call? This is Michael Hayes with Momentum Hiring Solutions, signing off.